


Contusions

by Heiots



Series: Intricacies of Joan Watson [1]
Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-12
Updated: 2014-12-12
Packaged: 2018-03-01 04:16:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2759321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heiots/pseuds/Heiots
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trauma always finds a way of making itself known.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Contusions

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to beta reader sanguinarysanguinity for her wonderful insight and edits!

_Contusions, commonly known as bruises, result from broken blood vessels, which are often caused by blunt trauma. This form of hematoma doesn’t go undetected, although damage is initially invisible to the naked eye. Underneath skin, blood from ruptured vessels seeps into the surrounding interstitial tissues, taking minutes to days for ugly discolouration to appear._

A motor putters down the road just outside the Brownstone, disrupting the flow of thoughts coursing through Sherlock’s mind. Fingers twitch at the disturbance, then, grow still with the disappearance of the intruding motor.

The whitish yellow hue of the moon filters through windows, casting a pale luminous glow in the otherwise darkened room. Eyes flit towards the couch. The figure under the blankets has not stirred, not since the hour hand struck one.

He abandons the hard-backed chair, ignoring the protesting twinge from stiff muscles, and crosses the hall. Swiping a set of car keys off the table, he yanks a black lightweight jacket from the rack and lets himself out into the night.

* * *

The lodging’s shabby exterior, complete with graffiti spray-painted across slowly crumbling brick walls, makes for a poor first impression. Not that he had expected much from accommodations based in the slums of the city. Above the single doorway hangs the hotel’s name in neon lights, of which four out of nine letters fail to glimmer. Chipped, concrete stairs lead up to the front door, path lit dimly by a flickering bulb perched at the right side of the entrance.

He walks in through the doorway, and his foot sinks into a dull, olive carpet with patches of a shade darker. Canned laughter from the twenty-inch television behind a low coffee-stained counter greets him.

Not a living soul in sight, not even a glimpse of a single security camera hidden in aged cobwebs. 

A place made for easy crime.

He takes the steps two at a time to the next floor, a cursory glance at the expletives scribbled over peeling wallpaper. Lowered voices and a high-pitched raucous laugh seep through paper-thin walls, grating on his nerves. He ascends the last step, and on the second landing, spots the numbers, acrylic with a bronze finish, stuck on the fourth door.

Fourteen.

This was where she had been.

A bead of sweat trickles down his temple. His shallow breathing, amplified in the dark, narrow hallway, accompanies the monotonous hum of the heater.

He ought to barge in. Plough through the empty bottles littering the floor and unleash his roiling fury on the miscreant within. Aren’t there firm believers in the old saying ‘An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’? He knows well enough she wouldn’t do it. Why not take vengeance on her behalf? Hadn’t he spent hours deliberating before coming to that decision? Is that not why his feet had pounded all the way here like a desperate man’s?

Unnerved, he shoves his hands into pockets, conscious of the tremors that have crept in yet again. Unexpected. Untamable. One more factor beyond his control. They came in intervals of thirty minutes, with the first episode happening within seconds of her return to the Brownstone, the instant the details coalesced to present the full picture in all its sordid glory.

He inhales deep, fists clenched by his side, and in the stale, musty air, below the pungent odors of sweat and alcohol, a scent causes his breath to hitch.

He pulls up, heart hammering within his chest. A pellet of white-hot heat, lodged in the bottom of his spine, begins to ascend, vertebra by vertebra.

The scent is etched in his mind. Both enticing and repulsive, sharp like vinegar.

_Heroin._

And it smelt rather like…

_Home._

His mind careens wildly, memories rising to the surface: stumbling through the drenched streets of London, the freezing night air draped around him, body wracked with shivers and covered in cold sweat as he grapples for the packet in the hand of the man called Rhys.

A distant voice berates him for not having anticipated the current circumstances, but it is tiny, insignificant, and he quickly squelches it. He inches closer to the door as though drawn by a magnetic force. At the back of his dry throat, beyond the sour beginnings of nausea, is the taste of longing.

He could still accomplish what he came to do, couldn’t he? Perhaps even make away with a trophy in the form of sweet, white powder.

Fingers quiver, the relentless cravings fanning from the depths of his gut outwards until he is certain they would consume him any second.

His weakness.

_Or is it not?_

* * *

He returns to the Brownstone in the wee hours of the morning, porch lights piercing through the first faint grey glimmers of twilight. Trudging across the threshold, chilled to the bone, he finds her awake, still nestled among blankets, hair disheveled in that way that has always been oddly attractive to him.

She fixes him with a questioning look. He supposes he looks a little worse for wear, but at least he hasn’t appeared to her babbling incoherently like he did at Alistair’s place. With a wan smile, he offers up his injuries for her perusal. “Minor accident with a brick wall.”

The antiseptic stings where skin had broken, but he tolerates—no, welcomes—the pain without so much as a wince as deft hands gently but skillfully clean dust, dirt, and dried blood from wounded knuckles.

She reaches up into the cabinet for a packet of gauze, and the loose sleeve of her favourite red worn sweater slides back, bunching up at her elbow. Bruises like soft petals of purple and blue bloom on pale skin. She blinks, dropping her arm to cover what can’t be unseen.

 _Hemostasis_.

It is a process he is well acquainted with.

A vital procedure that stops the bleeding, it allows the repair of damaged vessels and tissue through three stages: vasoconstriction, platelet plug formation, and coagulation. If the body is unable to halt the bleeding on its own, outside assistance may be required to stimulate healing of the wound.

His own case is illustrative. It took another to guide him through the steps to recovery.

Perhaps she requires assistance; he only hopes she will allow it.


End file.
